Discover the fascinating world of genetic genealogy! Written for the non-scientist, YGG is the best source for unbiased news on the major genealogy DNA testing companies.
Written by CeCe Moore, an independent professional genetic genealogist and television consultant.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

23andMe Sale and Updates

The 23andMe sale inadvertently went live early this morning (from about 2:00am - 8:00am PST) and many were able to order what was previously called the Complete Edition, now their only offering, for $99 plus a one year subscription to the Personal Genome Service ($159 total). This was not intentional since the sale was not meant to start until 10am PST.

From 23andMe:
"...There will be an update posted in the community after 10 am. I'm pretty sure...nobody will be disappointed. Getting our service into the hands of as many people as possible is our #1 goal...I hope everyone realizes that whatever plans we had went somewhat awry, and for that we are deeply apologetic. However, it is too late to rearrange the moving pieces, so nothing new will happen until 10am...Trust me, we know this is not an ideal situation - we would never have chosen to do it this way."

Judging from this, it appears that the sale will reappear at 10am, as originally planned. [Updated- The sale is now live and, reportedly, should last through Friday. All codes that have been released in the last 24 hours are valid, includingCUBPNY.]

23andMe officially announced the availability of their new chip with this press release today, as well as updating their FAQs to address some of the questions that have arisen. In particular, according to this new FAQ, it should be noted that new customers will no longer receive updates, including new Relative Finder matches, if they cancel their PGS subscription, however they will still have access to any existing reports, matches, features and their raw data. Existing customers will continue to get updates for all reports based on the current chip. Any new reports that have data on the old chip will be available to them, without subscription or upgrade. To answer a common concern, 23andMe has confirmed with me that non-upgraded kits will still receive new Relative Finder matches from among the new orders. They said that the goal is for the existing kits to not be impacted by the new changes. Therefore, existing customers who do not upgrade will not be affected at this time, but, obviously, will not receive the benefits of the new technology. Current customers are being encouraged not to automatically upgrade, but rather to wait until they "see the value". We are assured that the option will continue to be available.

It is also my understanding that if you have kits that you bought before Monday, but haven't yet sent them in, they will be processed on the new v3 chip and do NOT require a subscription! (That is the best deal of all!)

With the above in mind, I plan to order a whole new kit instead of upgrading. Since the upgrade costs $89 plus a monthly subscription of $5, then it is only $10 more for a whole new kit. That way I can keep my existing kit without the subscription and continue to get new Relative Finder matches and continued updates, even if I decide to cancel the subscription for the new kit after 12 months. I will report the differences here when I get my results. [Update- 23andMe is discouraging this approach because it will fragment the information (surveys, etc) and may confuse users (multiple RF profiles).]